Building A Great Training Organization | September/October 2020

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

BUILDING A

GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION

THE FOUNDATION FOR TRAINING SUCCESS | 18 Defining an Effective Learning Strategy

LEADING A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION | 24 10 Best Practices to Drive High Performance

CULTIVATING BUSINESS ACUMEN | 38 Learning to Speak the Language of Business

BUSINESS

PERSPECTIVES

ON

MANAGING

WORLD-CLASS

TRAINING

We have spent the last decade researching how organizational size, structure and industry affect training performance.

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KEN TAYLOR

FROM THE EDITOR

BUILDING A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION

As organizations work to navigate the significant changes occurring in 2020, this edition of Training Industry Magazine provides a collection of ideas to help learning and development (L&D) leaders develop great training organizations. For your journey, I thought it would be helpful to share a framework for great training organizations based on over a decade of extensive research conducted by Training Industry. We have learned that building any type of great organization requires an understanding of where the organization is positioned across three areas: its process capabilities, best practices and the ability of those practices to support continuous improvement and innovation.

IT IS MY BELIEF THAT UNDERSTANDING MEANS DOCUMENTING. PROCESS CAPABILITIES The process capabilities associated with great training organizations include eight key areas: • Strategic alignment: Ability to design learning programs that align with business objectives.

• Content development: Ability to design, manage and maintain content.

• Delivery: Ability to manage an instructor network and deliver training using multiple modalities.

• Diagnostics: Ability to identify problems and make recommendations.

• Reporting and analysis: Ability to define business metrics and report data to make improvements.

• Technology integration: Ability to integrate learning technologies with other technologies and corporate applications.

• Administrative services: Ability to manage scheduling, registration, technology and other support functions.

• Portfolio management: Ability to manage, rationalize and maintain large portfolios of learning solutions.

Each of these process capabilities have varying impacts on organizational performance depending on the circumstances the organization is experiencing. As data from our pulse survey of the learning industry tell us, many organizations have been converting training programs for virtual delivery, so their capabilities in the areas of content development, delivery and technology integration are being put to the test.

PRACTICES The first step toward establishing a great training organization is understanding what we already do in each of these eight areas, and it is my belief that understanding means documenting. For

example, the process of documenting what practices your organization executes in support of strategic alignment might include understanding the business objectives your programs are designed to support. How are you doing that today, and who is involved?

As you document these practices, you should also assess how mature your practices are. We developed a training practices maturity model to aid your assessment.

MATURITY MODEL Maturity ranges from an ad hoc approach to optimized practices. When practices are optimized, processes are replicable, monitored, and continuously assessed for improvement.

Hopefully, this brief introduction to a framework to improve the impact of your learning efforts is one helpful step on your journey toward achieving a great and process-oriented training organization.

We teach this model as part of our Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM) program, so if you’d like a better understanding, just ask a CPTM graduate.

As always, we love to hear your thoughts about the perspectives shared in this edition. Feel free to send any suggestions for us to consider.

Ken Taylor is the president and editor in chief of Training Industry, Inc. Email Ken.

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CO N T E N TS

TA B L E O F VOLUME 13

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I

ISSUE 6

I

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

FEATURES

18 THE FOUNDATION FOR TRAINING SUCCESS

18 22 24 28

24 LEADING A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION

38 CULTIVATING BUSINESS ACUMEN

BUILDING A LEARNING STRATEGY THAT DRIVES BUSINESS RESULTS

By Kelly Smith and Brian Blecke

Successful training that drives business results starts with an effective strategy.

L&D BOTTLENECK: WHY YOUR TRAINING MATERIAL ISN’T BEING UTILIZED

By Daniel Sowards

Eliminate the L&D bottleneck in your organization to demonstrate the value of training.

10 BEST PRACTICES FOR LEADING A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION

By Alyssa Kaszycki, Taryn Oesch and Dr. Amy DuVernet

Gain insights from a decade of research on the best practices of great training organizations.

THE UNTAPPED GOLDMINE OF THE SERVICE PROFESSIONAL AS THE TRUSTED ADVISOR

By Caroline Murphy

Leverage service professionals’ expertise to gain greater insights into customer needs.

30

DO WE REALLY NEED LEARNING PLATFORMS? UNDERSTAND THE LEARNING LANDSCAPE AND SPEND YOUR BUDGET WISELY

By Kasper Spiro and Videhi Bhamidi

Discover trends in the latest learning technologies and strategies for effective implementation.

35 38

IMPROVING INSTRUCTOR DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE WITH OBSERVATIONS

By Reanna P. Harman, Ph.D., and Elisabeth G. Dezern

Effective instructors are essential to any great training organization.

HOW TO LEVERAGE BUSINESS ACUMEN TO CREATE A FUTURE-READY ORGANIZATION

By Steven Haines

The cultivation of business acumen contributes to the creation of resilient organizations.

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ACCOUNTING FOR LEARNING INVESTMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT

By Ajay M. Pangarkar and Teresa Kirkwood

Gain support for your learning initiatives by demonstrating the impact of your training efforts.

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IN THIS ISSUE

THOUGHT LEADERS

5 11

PERSPECTIVES

By Ken Taylor

Great training organizations evaluate their effectiveness across eight process capabilities.

GUEST EDITOR

By Matthew Prager, CPTM

An effective strategic learning plan informs and guides key business decisions.

13

SCIENCE OF LEARNING

15

PERFORMANCE MATTERS

By Srini Pillay, M.D.

Training organizations have much to learn from the neuroscience of healthy brains.

17 49 51

BUILDING LEADERS

By Sam Shriver and Marshall Goldsmith

Great training organizations separate themselves from the pack by excelling in three areas.

WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

By Stella Lee, Ph.D.

Learning leaders have a unique opportunity to shine amidst the disruption of COVID-19.

LEARNER MINDSET

By Michelle Eggleston Schwartz

Cut through the noise and improve employee engagement in the coronavirus pandemic.

By Julie Winkle Giulioni

Thriving learning organizations possess three key ingredients for success.

INFO EXCHANGE

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CASEBOOK Follow one organization’s journey toward centralizing 25 state agencies into one enterprise training team.

Keep up with the latest in the training industry by reading news from the last quarter.

CLOSING DEALS Chorus.ai’s conversation intelligence technology comes of age as a result of Series C funding.

CONNECT WITH US

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TrainingIndustry.com

ABOUT OUR TEAM

STAFF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Doug Harward dharward@trainingindustry.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sarah Gallo sgallo@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Kellie Blackburn kblackburn@trainingindustry.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF & PRESIDENT Ken Taylor ktaylor@trainingindustry.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Hope Williams hwilliams@trainingindustry.com

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MISSION Training Industry Magazine connects learning and development professionals with the resources and solutions needed to more effectively manage the business of learning.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ELECTRONIC:

JUDI BADER, CPTM Senior Director of Learning Arby’s Restaurant Group

MATTHEW S. PRAGER, CPTM Executive Training Manager U.S. Government

MICHAEL CANNON, M.ED. Senior Director, Head of Learning & Development Red Hat

MARC RAMOS Global Head of Learning Strategy & Learning Innovation Novartis

MEGAN CASADOS Director of Training DISH

KELLY RIDER Vice President, L&D Content Strategy & Experience SAP Learning & Development

BARBARA JORDAN, CPTM Group Vice President, Global Learning & Development Sims Metal Management

DR. SYDNEY SAVION General Manager, Learning Air New Zealand

CATHERINE KELLY, MA, BSN, RN, CPTM Director of Learning Programs Brookdale Senior Living

KERRY TROESTER, CPTM Director, North America Sales Training Lenovo

SHIREEN LACKEY, CPTM Talent Management Officer, Office of Business Process Integration Veterans Benefits Administration

NATASHA MILLER WILLIAMS Head of Diversity & Inclusion Ferrara

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MATTHEW S. PRAGER, CPTM

GUEST EDITOR

THE STRATEGIC L&D PLAN

A critical part of a successful learning and development (L&D) program is a multi-year strategic plan. A strategic plan defines the direction of learning solutions, informing and guiding key business decisions.

STRATEGICALLY ALIGN TRAINING A foundational resource in developing an L&D strategic plan is the organization’s overall strategic plan. The organization’s vision and goals provide the framework for determining the future goals of learning programs, supporting the organization’s vision for growth in the future.

When aligning learning programs to the future needs of the organization, there are two specific areas to consider: • Changes in business operations and scope. What is the future of the organization and how does it impact the need for learning programs? How will policies and processes change?

• Changes in L&D programs necessary to support the future. Are L&D programs teaching the right skills and competencies? Are the learning programs provided effective and positively impacting the business?

ADDRESS DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES The L&D strategic plan must demonstrate how learning programs will maintain and improve business resources and partners.

Employees, customers and stakeholders are all impacted by change. Technology is constantly changing and improving, and

new developments in technology impact how we do business – and learn.

Strategies for supporting emerging policies, new product and service lines, and reskilling the workforce are key to developing an L&D plan that anticipates organizational change.

Additionally, the strategic plan should efficiently optimize resources for the development of learning programs. The plan should address learning programs designed in-house, sourced from thirdparty vendors or a blend of both. The plan should also address infrastructure requirements to ensure that training facilities, technology and personnel are sufficient to meet the changing needs.

PLAN FOR FLEXIBILITY AND CONTINUITY The strategic plan should address flexible learning strategies, structures, support systems and processes. These aspects of the plan should remain aligned to the business mission and goals. Learning leaders should also seek to diversify the instructional methods, processes and supporting technologies that enable learning to continue when events outside of the organization’s control occur.

Identify potential scenarios that might impact learning strategies and operations, and create contingency strategies to counter the effects. If possible, identify trigger points that would initiate a review of training structures and processes, and implement contingency plans and solutions to resolve any roadblocks

and meet the changing needs of the organization. Developing and utilizing a communication plan allows changes to be quickly communicated.

THE L&D STRATEGIC PLAN IS A LIVING, ITERATIVE DOCUMENT. MAINTAINING THE L&D PLAN The L&D strategic plan is a living, iterative document. Implementing a regular monitoring process along with L&D strategies will help determine if the L&D program is successful in supporting the organization and ensure its continued alignment to the organization’s business goals. Including success measures to track the effectiveness of the plan’s implementation and outcomes will ensure that it is practical and measurable. Part of the monitoring process is an annual review of the L&D plan, which should occur concurrently with an annual review of the organization’s overall strategic plan.

Developing a comprehensive L&D strategic plan bridges the organization’s vision and strategy with execution, allowing training and education operations to align with and fully support the organization’s needs.

Matthew S. Prager, CPTM, manages largescale national training programs for the U.S. federal government – comprising hundreds of individual courses, numerous certificate programs and online information, and training sources for millions of learners.

Email Matthew.

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SRINI PIL LAY, M.D.

SCIENCE OF LEARNING

DEVELOPING A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION LIKE A HEALTHY BRAIN Organizations are made up of people, and people have brains. Therefore, for training organizations to be great, the people in them and their brains must be at their best. In 2020, training organizations have a lot to learn from the science of healthy brains. And a healthy brain is characterized by various traits that may sound counterintuitive at first.

Choose “dynamism” over “order”: When speaking of great companies, entrepreneur Peter Thiel explains that there are no formulae. In keeping with this, in 2010, an article from Harvard Business Review explained that companies that survived a recession were not the most pragmatic, innovative or balanced. Instead, they were progressive and dynamic, reflecting how the brain works best. Recent studies demonstrate that – the higher the complexity or disorder in the brain – the greater the intelligence. In fact, neurons function best at the edge of chaos.

Great training organizations: To be great then, training should be dynamic, adapting to the needs of the time and prioritizing agility in learning. To be agile is more than a philosophy. It is a mindset shift to remove barriers to adaptability: too much feedback, resistance to action, confusion over pros and cons, reluctance to think too far in the future, and overly theoretical thinking rather than thinking that is pertinent to the market and time.

Each of these brain-based factors can be addressed as they apply to the current strategy and state of the company.

Embrace complexity: A great training organization will embrace complexity.

On a neurological level, this means that the organization helps people alternate between switching in and out of focus.

Setting aside time for idea generation and brain restoration through rest is crucial.

Great training organizations: Complexity may be elusive at first. At its core, it requires setting aside more time for your 100 billion neurons to be part of the equation of success. This means that you must toggle between focus and rest, and those moments of rest should be part of the company culture, measured right alongside productivity. Napping, doodle boards and vision boards can all be part of down time. During focus time, employees can mold realizations that occur during down time into effective strategies.

Even online meetings can include “unfocus” tools.

Prioritize mental health: As a result of COVID-19, the CDC reports that anxiety has tripled, and depression has quadrupled. Mental health programs may feel like a luxury. However, during highly stressful times, they are a necessity if companies want to save money on turnover and absenteeism. Moreover, when mental health is good, immunity and physical health are protected, too.

Great training organizations: Provide mental health screenings, offer mental health days and consider buying online programs that remove the stigma surrounding mental health. I have led several such programs on LinkedIn Learning, as well as wellness programs with Duke CE and ExecOnline.

Find similar programs to scale throughout your organization.

Beware post-COVID brain bias: We live in a world that is polarized by gender, generation, race and political party. In this environment, training can suffer as in-group biases prevail – preventing collaboration, cooperation and connections necessary for fluent execution of strategies.

IN 2020, TRAINING ORGANIZATIONS HAVE A LOT TO LEARN FROM THE SCIENCE OF HEALTHY BRAINS. Great training organizations: Constant reminders and fears of death bias the brain, so people hold on to their own viewpoints more strongly than ever. For this reason, help people understand how mortality salience — or reminders of death — bias the brain, making it difficult to see others’ points of view.

For this reason, introducing “point of view” exercises, where teams express how they think others are feeling, can stimulate healthy discussion.

These four strategies are practical brainbased approaches to enhance your organization and its training efforts.

Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is a Harvard trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and on the Consortium for Learning Innovation at McKinsey & Company. He is also the author of, “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind.” Email Srini.

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Development through quality training

Your greatest assets are your people

Developing effective employee skills is an essential investment for any successful organisation. Neoskill training engage and nurture the skills of corporate teams and individuals to build more proficient organisations. With over 20 years of industry knowledge, trust Neoskill to provide customised training solutions, online or on-site with positive learning experiences. We place your people, your greatest assets, at the heart of training and development.

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Š 2020 Neoskill Ltd. All rights reserved. Neoskill and Neoskill logo are registered trademarks of Neoskill Ltd.

JULIE WINKLE GIULIONI

PERFORMANCE MATTERS

CHANGE-READY L&D: INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESS

I don’t know about you, but our family has been spending more time in the kitchen recently. Early on in quarantine, we dabbled in baking bread before migrating to other foods we never had the time to make from scratch. Maybe that’s why I’m looking at life and learning with an eye toward new recipes these days.

When it comes to the learning and development (L&D) landscape, it’s become increasingly clear that there are a few common ingredients making a delicious difference in learning organizations. While the current crisis has left some training departments immobilized or consumed with technology-related challenges, others appear to have effortlessly stepped up to the plate. They pivoted quickly, adjusting their approaches and offering meaningful and collaborative solutions.

When I asked an L&D leader from a particularly effective organization how her team readied themselves to adjust to dramatically changing conditions, she jokingly responded, “We were born ready.” In reality, they had cultivated a set of competencies during stable times that were serving them during these unstable times. And other L&D organizations that are thriving today possess these same three ingredients for supporting success.

RISK TOLERANCE The L&D organizations that are partnering effectively and producing results today are leveraging sensibilities and skills honed long before the pandemic.

They continue to embrace these skills

while simultaneously accelerating experimentation, understanding that success may not follow a direct trajectory.

They know that they might not get it right the first time but persevere, understanding that failure isn’t fatal. They engage in rapid prototyping to offer an 80% solution to those in need – and then iterate to achieve the remaining 20%. They assess the risk, weigh it against results and mitigate where possible – never allowing the pursuit of perfection to stall progress.

THE L&D ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE THRIVING TODAY ARE LEVERAGING SKILLS HONED LONG BEFORE THE PANDEMIC. OUTCOMES FOCUS Most L&D initiatives begin and end with a set of learning or performance outcomes defining success. Yet, once those outcomes are established, we shift our focus to how we’re going to make it happen.

The “how” takes us away from an aerial view down into the pine needles, and it’s easy to lose perspective. It’s easy to double down on existing technology solutions or fall in love with a great new application. It’s even easier to reiterate the way we’ve always done it – particularly under stress and pressure.

However, L&D functions making a difference today remain ferociously

focused on what they seek to achieve rather than how they’ll achieve it. In the process, they have discovered new – and often easier – approaches, earned credibility from executives and delivered aligned results.

INCLUSIVITY L&D departments that are thriving today appear to share one final ingredient: A genuine and enduring commitment to collaborating broadly and including a variety of diverse perspectives in the planning and evaluation of their work.

This plays out in numerous ways during times of crisis and calm, including: • Empathetic listening to employees, leaders, customers and other stakeholders.

• Commitment to partnering with other departments to achieve results.

• Finding meaningful ways to support user-generated content that meets the learning needs of employees.

It’s no coincidence that the first letters of each of these ingredients – risk tolerance, outcomes focus and inclusivity – spell out ROI (return on investment). L&D professionals who cultivate these qualities will be poised to cook up success as we emerge into the next normal.

Julie Winkle Giulioni has 25 years of experience working with organizations worldwide to improve performance through learning. Email Julie.

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SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

BUILDING LEADERS

WHAT GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATIONS DO

If nothing else – over the last 40 years – the two of us have had our fair share of opportunities to work with a large number of training organizations. Based on our collective experience, we would offer that great training organizations (GTOs) separate themselves from the pack by excelling in the following areas: ADDING VALUE First and foremost, GTOs understand and embrace their role as a support function.

Sounds easy enough, but many training departments lose sight of that fundamental reality. Some become driven by recognition from industry associations and their professional peers.

A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION IS PREPARED FOR THE UNEXPECTED – EVEN THE UNPRECEDENTED. A true GTO is obsessed with their internal reputation. They perceive themselves as conduits between organizational strategy and day-to-day execution that exist to make the lives of their sponsors easier. To achieve that objective, they invest significant time and energy into developing active partnerships with management.

They prioritize truly understanding the nuances of the business they support, as that understanding serves as a mechanism for ensuring the accelerated development of employees. The documented respect of sponsors

regarding the quality and relevance of the training solutions provided is the only recognition learning leaders in GTOs are driven to receive.

ATTRACTING TALENT A GTO is like any other highly successful organization: Talented people want to work there! They are intrigued by the challenges associated with the work; they are captivated by the energy that radiates from the existing team. On a personal level, they see themselves fitting in and contributing to the environment. So, how does one attract great talent? We borrow heavily from our friend and colleague, Sandy Ogg, and suggest you consider the following: • Role: How much does each role in the training department contribute to the impact and reputation of the training function and the overall business?

This is not an easy question to answer, but GTOs are distinguished by the sophistication and effort employed in its pursuit.

• Career appeal: How attractive is a role in a GTO to people with other options?

If you are a career-minded learning and development professional or a high-potential company employee, what would compel you to commit to the training department? There are several competing factors impacting that decision, but these three make their way to the top of most lists: • Compensation: Does it make shortand long-term sense?

• Visibility: Would making this move increase the probability that you would have the option of more upward mobility?

• Connection: Would this move put you in a position to do work of enhanced personal or professional significance?

DEMONSTRATING AGILITY Organizations around the world have had ample opportunity to showcase their resiliency in 2020. In one way or another, the waves of change we have experienced over the last few months have drastically impacted us all. When significant change occurs, an organization’s collective Performance Readiness® shifts. Skill gaps emerge that are often accompanied by motivational challenges – typically grounded in the fear of the unknown.

A GTO is prepared for the unexpected – even the unprecedented. As the road to recovery is established and visions of a new normal begin to emerge, a GTO identifies skill gaps, develops a tailored plan to address disparities, implements that plan and monitors its impact. In that regard, a GTO serves as a reliable model of agility and responsiveness in the throes of disruption.

Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority in helping successful leaders get even better. Sam Shriver is the executive vice president at The Center for Leadership Studies. Email Sam and Marshall.

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Successful organizations view training, learning and employee development as instrumental to their success. They use learning strategies to: • Simultaneously align and integrate the needs and goals of business leaders, learning and development (L&D), and employees.

• Proactively make decisions that are readily supported by the organization and work within the learning ecosystem’s boundaries and other organizational constraints.

• Ensure job performance is paramount by accounting for the entirety of the knowledge, skills and contexts facing their employees.

A learning strategy must accomplish all three of those objectives and simultaneously provide a model to prompt essential conversations between business, talent and training leaders.

DEFINING YOUR LEARNING STRATEGY The settings, scope and variety of circumstances that drive a learning strategy differ by organization.

Consequently, its challenging to

find a universal definition that fits all commercial settings.

Learning strategies consist of several common elements. At the root, a learning strategy is a form of prediction that describes a legitimate outcome, identifies vital actions that will lead to achieving the goal and defines how results will be measured.

Additionally, learning strategies may include: • Input from stakeholders to inform, guide and approve the adoption of the strategy.

• An articulation of how features align with business goals.

• Sufficient analysis and research to uncover relevant data that lead to distinct and nuanced insights.

• Creative solutions, frameworks or actions that form a roadmap to the endgame.

are complex sets of interconnected and dynamic components consisting of the resources, functions, routines, processes and capabilities that enable L&D to respond to the organization, support varied initiatives, and build and deploy training.

A learning ecosystem has many facets, such as: • Foundational principles and values.

• Governance and alignment processes.

• Operational and training metrics; mechanisms for data collection, monitoring and reporting.

• Budget and ease of securing funding.

• Tools, technology environments.

and

training

• Team capabilities and external partners and vendors.

• A financial plan or budget.

• Resources for training delivery, coaching, etc.

Underpinning a successful learning strategy is an organization’s unique learning ecosystem. Ecosystems

• Training function processes, including intake, analysis, content development and maintenance.

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Assessing the learning ecosystem’s strengths and weaknesses is essential to a learning strategy. L&D can probe further where necessary and appropriate by asking questions, such as: • What is the state of it?

• Does it enable, limit or work against the learning strategy?

• What has to change to improve it?

How fast does it need to improve?

Does the improvement need to accelerate or decelerate?

• Is it worth the investment?

• Does it provide quality data, feedback or information that helps us make decisions (i.e., does it reveal patterns, commonalities or unique qualities)?

The intention is to understand the ecosystem and maximize what is currently possible. Next, we will discuss learning strategies at the enterprise, department and skill levels.

Stakeholder input Within the confines of an organization, an enterprise learning strategy may have a host of stakeholders representing the organization. Senior leaders develop, refine and articulate the strategic, overarching goals for the enterprise. Many of the goals – notably those pertinent to L&D – reveal that leadership wants to see higher levels of performance. They can also provide insights into the obstacles the organization must overcome to achieve its goals. They can break down the goals and assign them to functions, identify vital roles, and explain what they intend to measure.

• Include a measurement plan with metrics, methods, or mechanisms for collecting and analyzing data, plus milestones and timelines that cover changes to the learning ecosystem and the actions of the L&D organization in service of the organization’s goals.

Other inputs: • Actual business results vs. business plan.

At this level of the learning strategy, the focus is narrower, targeting a role, department, function or other readily definable subsets of the organization.

• Annual employee engagement and satisfaction surveys.

• Market scans and trend shifts.

• Technological advancements.

• Plans of peer organizations.

AT THE ROOT, A LEARNING STRATEGY IS A FORM OF PREDICTION THAT DESCRIBES A LEGITIMATE OUTCOME.

The strategy The enterprise learning strategy may cover several years or stages, with measurable milestones that align with the overall business strategy and goals.

Depending on the organization and situation, it may: • Indicate changes to the learning ecosystem that will better enable the enterprise.

• Identify new, expanded, or reduced capabilities and capacity.

• Highlight improved or new processes.

ENTERPRISE At an enterprise level, the scope of a learning strategy encompasses all of its employees. It may look several years into the future, describing how the L&D function will evolve and improve the learning ecosystem to serve the organization, as well as highlight how its actions will achieve business goals.

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• Identify external partnerships for a stopgap, plus partners for long-term support.

• Describe necessary improvements to the technological infrastructure needed to support L&D. • List large-scale programs (e.g., compliance) or content curation efforts that will be useful for employees, managers and leaders

At the enterprise level, an aligned learning strategy connects L&D actions to business goals and outcomes. It provides a framework and principles for the role, department or functional learning strategy.

ROLE, DEPARTMENT OR FUNCTION

Stakeholder input There are two essential stakeholders at this level: managers of the function and the employees who populate the positions.

Managers refine organizational goals to shape goals within their control. They are generally able to provide initial indications of gaps in performance, knowledge or skill. They can provide insights that shape essential definitions of employee proficiency, developmental dimensions (signs of when an employee can be trusted to work autonomously, for example), performance measures, time-to-performance expectations and design assumptions.

Top performers can describe the practices, routines and behaviors that lead to successful performance.

They can also indicate where typical gaps arise and what causes the gaps.

Expanding the analysis to include lowand mid-level performers provides a more complete picture of the gaps.

Additionally, the analysis can shed light on the various contexts in which performance occurs.

When focusing such analyses on job performance rather than training needs, other factors – such as inefficient processes, inferior technologies and misaligned consequence systems – come to light. The effect of this additional knowledge results in a more refined,

targeted and aligned learning strategy, because L&D can avoid including nontraining matters.

Other inputs: • Actual performance results vs. learning plan.

• Annual employee performance review processes.

• Annual employee engagement satisfaction surveys.

or

• Assessment of the learning ecosystem.

• Assessment of existing enterprise programs and available curated content.

• Plans of other business functions.

Learning strategy Here, the learning strategy ties to performance goals and outcomes specific to a role, department or function.

It reflects the multifaceted nature of job performance and gaps that exist. It can cover a timespan of a year to two years and may: • Specify links between the learning strategy and business goals.

• Provide a roadmap for employees as they develop from one stage to another.

• Describe how employees become proficient in their current roles and how they can begin preparations for advancement or movement to another role.

• Include developmental timelines and performance milestones.

At this level, aligned learning strategies demonstrably connect L&D development efforts to business goals and leverages the principles set out in the enterprise strategy.

Further, it provides a framework, data and guidance for the development of training.

DISCRETE PERFORMANCE, KNOWLEDGE OR SKILL GAP Here, a learning strategy focuses on designing, building, and deploying optimal and practical learning experiences.

Learning solutions initiated through the learning strategies described above will benefit from the analyses and design choices already made. L&D can use these strategies to guide decisions as they scrutinize training requests over the course of the intake process.

ASSESSING THE LEARNING ECOSYSTEM'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES IS ESSENTIAL TO A LEARNING STRATEGY.

Learning strategy At this level, the learning strategy seeks to address discrete deficiencies in performance, knowledge or skill.

The solution reflects the intersection of business goals, the employee development plan, relevant research, and the learning ecosystem. It may combine modalities and include multiple stages. Typically described by learning objectives or performance outcomes, the learning strategy: • Links learning outcomes to performance outcomes and indicates how learning and performance outcomes will be measured.

• Outline how trainers, managers, coaches and others participate in the solution.

CONCLUSION

• Delineate a content development plan with budgets, timelines and resource allocations.

Other inputs: • Actual performance learning plan.

results

• Relevant learning research.

• Shows how formal instruction, informal learning, job aids and tools are organized to support employee performance.

• Provide a prioritized list of training solutions for development.

• Outline how managers, coaches and others participate in the process.

• Assessment of existing enterprise programs and available curated content.

• Describes the attributes of the target audience.

Stakeholder input Managers and employees continue to be primary stakeholders at this level. They see to it that the learning solution supports the business goals and related performance outcomes.

Managers and employees can provide input to design decisions, gather and share appropriate content, fill in gaps, review deliverables, provide feedback, and approve the draft and final materials.

• Indicate how formal instruction, informal learning, job aids and tools are organized to support employee performance.

• Assessment of the learning ecosystem.

vs.

A useful learning strategy follows business intentions and goals as they cascade down from the top of the organization. At each level, learning strategies align with business goals.

Underpinned by sound analyses, data and research-informed practices, they close critical gaps by delivering performance outcomes.

When constructed this way, learning strategies align courses, employee development plans, and organizational strategy with business goals and results.

Kelly Smith and Brian Blecke are founding partners and performance consultants at Actio Learning. Email Kelly and Brian.

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Has there ever been a more vital time for training material than 2020?

Between shifting working environments, new workflows and rapidly evolving diversity initiatives, 2020 is a year of change, meaning 2020 is also a year for training. The premise for this article was first inspired by Harvard Business Review’s October 2019 article, “Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development.” A few statistics cited in the article underline major concerns in corporate training: “Organizations spent $359 billion globally on training in 2016, but was it worth it?

Not when you consider the following: • 75% of 1,500 managers surveyed from across 50 organizations were dissatisfied with their company’s Learning & Development (L&D) function; • 70% of employees report that they don’t have mastery of the skills needed to do their jobs; • Only 12% of employees apply new skills learned in L&D programs to their jobs; and

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• Only 25% of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey believe that training measurably improved performance.”

It begs the question whether the 75% of dissatisfied managers work for organizations that treat L&D teams as thought leaders or production houses?

If those L&D teams are only producing what’s asked of them without the ability to validate and evaluate training needs, then low utilization of and satisfaction with training should be a shared accountability with the business. As more budgetary scrutiny is placed on teams during these economically uncertain times, L&D teams need to showcase the value they bring. This article highlights valid concerns for L&D’s training efforts and showcases why discovering your organization’s L&D bottleneck is so essential.

THE BOTTLENECK When manufacturing is discussed in every basics-of-business class, the business principle of “the bottleneck” inevitably arises. In business, a bottleneck is often described as one process in a long chain of processes that limits the chain’s capacity to generate value. When bottlenecks are present in the supply chain, halts in

production, customer dissatisfaction and low employee morale are likely to occur.

In modern L&D, the bottleneck isn’t suppressing available content, learning management system (LMS) capabilities, budget or leadership buy-in. Rather, the bottleneck exists in the limited utilization and misuse of training materials. Let’s evaluate why this is the case.

DO YOU CREATE NICE OR NECESSARY TRAINING? A friend of mine, Emily, told me about an experience she had in the early 2010s when she was newly hired into her role and received a sales training request.

DURING THESE ECONOMICALLY UNCERTAIN TIMES, L&D TEAMS NEED TO SHOWCASE THE VALUE THEY BRING.

A vice president (VP) approached her saying that he needed an innovative training experience for his frontline salespeople, specifically a virtual reality (VR) experience. When she asked how he determined a VR solution was needed, the VP casually provided anecdotal evidence to illustrate the need. Emily agreed to do some research into VR training for sales reps but asked the VP to come back with reliable evidence to demonstrate the existing need, so that both teams could identify the direct business impact of the training through evaluation later on.

JUST-IN-TIME RESOURCES AND TRAINING REINFORCEMENT HAVE BECOME VITAL TO THE WORKFLOWS OF MODERN LEARNERS. As I’m sure you can guess, no evaluation data was ever provided by the sales leader, and the L&D team created a visually and instructionally dynamic sales training course. Six months after the launch of the initiative, Emily asked for an increased budget for a new instructional designer role. The company leadership asked her to account for the budget allocated to the large sales training as a way to help them build a business case for this new role. While she had a very impressive looking course, she had no data to justify the time and budget spent on the training, and no clear way to show that the training positively impacted business performance.

So, what can we learn from this example?

• As L&D leaders, we are in charge of making sure all training, especially training that uses a significant amount of your budget and time, addresses a measurable need. Even if the budget is coming from another department,

you must be able to demonstrate that your team invested in a worthwhile endeavor.

• Looking to the tried and true wisdom of Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation, “Learning and performance professionals must be able to show the organizational value of their training… On the surface, demonstrating the value of training to the organization might seem selfserving; however, it is necessary not only for a training department to sustain itself, but also to earn the respect of other departments and the entire organization.”

interfaces or the content is buried within an hour-long training video covering several processes, utilization is doomed to be low. Ask yourself the following questions when you’re planning your next training initiative: • Who are my executive sponsors?

• How will this training be integrated into our current culture of oneon-ones, quarterly reviews and performance evaluations?

• What internal marketing channels can I utilize aside from an email blast?

• As with any training intervention, considering and engaging the specified audience is essential to planning training. This will not only make your learners feel heard and appreciated but also provide you with key insights into the actual training need rather than relying on assumptions from the executive level.

Have you ever heard the saying, “The first bite is with the eye?” The same principle applies to when someone first hears about training. Don’t waste valuable time making every training launch fun and gimmicky, but the better you can promote the assets your L&D repository has, the better your utilization will be.

ARE YOU CREATING A LEARNER JOURNEY MAP?

HOW DO WE PREVENT L&D BOTTLENECKS MOVING FORWARD?

Just-in-time and training reinforcement resources have become vital to the workflows of modern learners. There is no question that everyone uses Google as an information directory on the job these days, but the one thing Google and other search engines lack, compared to a top notch L&D team, is a clear architecture for information.

That is where learner journey mapping comes into play.

For instance, the spacing effect suggests that 90% of learning that occurs in a training event is lost after just one month without any additional interventions.

However, if you have reinforcement built into your learner roadmap, knowledge retention improves significantly.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHANNELS OF DELIVERY? Like it or not, we are in the age of Slack, Twitter and TikTok. You might have a robust, internal corporate university, but if your material is behind multiple sign-in

Everything you create must be developed with business impact in mind, meaning you need to evaluate and identify direct correlation between training and business outcomes. Once leadership knows that L&D is creating training that impacts the bottom line, you’ll see support from the executive level to ensure everyone is utilizing your L&D resources.

Now more than ever, learning and development is recognized as an essential cog in the gears of organizational success, but that valued position will quickly be overlooked in an economic downturn if training is not being used. By identifying a clear evaluation approach early, validating what training needs exist, having modern and navigable channels for delivery, and tying interventions to business success through data, our L&D teams will not only weather storms but thrive and grow in the scope of their influence.

Daniel Sowards is an L&D advisor for AllenComm, where he focuses on measurable impact. Email Daniel.

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10 B E ST P R AC TICE S FO R LE ADI N G A G R E AT TR AI N I N G O RGAN IZ ATIO N

BY ALYSSA KASZYCKI, TARYN OESCH AND DR. AMY DUVERNET

Leading a training department is hard. It involves careful planning, anticipating a variety of business and employee needs, and addressing those needs with the right solution. It also demands a variety of skills, from leadership and strategic thinking to resource management and performance analysis.

Over the last decade, Training Industry, Inc., has collected data from thousands of training professionals across industries to determine what makes the most successful training organizations great.

Based on this research, we have identified ten best practices that can take your training department to the next level, making it an essential part of the business.

This research forms the basis of Training Industry’s continuing professional development programs for training managers, including our flagship Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM™) program. Throughout this article, we share insights from certified training managers regarding the 10 best practices of great training organizations.

1

LISTEN TO UNCOVER REAL BUSINESS PROBLEMS AND NEEDS

Often, the first step in creating and delivering training is identifying a

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business problem and determining whether training is the right way to address it. This process is known as diagnostics, and listening to uncover needs is a key practice. Over 70% of respondents to our survey indicated that this practice is “very important” for great training performance, making it the most important best practice. Unfortunately, only 23% of learning professionals indicated that their organization had optimized this practice. This gap represents a need for improvement. When you listen to uncover needs, you serve as a performance consultant and strategic partner, identifying impediments to achieving business goals and leveraging your expertise to remove barriers.

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One way to ensure high-quality training delivery is to use high-quality instructors — teachers who have great facilitation and presentation skills in addition to content knowledge. In a business environment where virtual training is increasingly popular, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations are realizing the importance of having instructors with strong virtual facilitation skills, from the ability to use virtual training platforms to the ability to engage online learners.

We’re cultivating our subject matter experts on how to facilitate learning rather than present the material.

USE INSTRUCTORS WITH GREAT FACILITATION AND PRESENTATION SKILLS

Training delivery is often the most obvious element of training to learners and stakeholders. As a result, this process deserves, and typically receives, a good amount of time and attention.

Just over 60% of learning professionals rate this practice as “very important,” making it the second best practice for great training.

– Chris Cassell, CPTM Manager of Sales Training Operations at Align Technology

3

CUSTOMIZE TRAINING TO MEET THE ORGANIZATION’S NEEDS

Our research indicates that the most important process capability of great

It is important to have confidentiality or anonymity, in many cases, so that you are getting a diverse and broad spectrum of feedback.

– Julie Kirsch, CPTM Director of Training and Development at Calibre CPA, PLLC

training organizations is strategic alignment — the ability to align training programs with business goals. By customizing training programs to meet business needs rather than simply purchasing some generic off-the-shelf content, learning leaders can ensure training is relevant to learners’ jobs and goals.

learners and the content. This is the first step toward improving outcomes.

5

USE KNOWLEDGEABLE INSTRUCTORS

All of these best practices are linked, integral components that make up a high-performing training organization.

When you’ve listened to uncover business needs, it’s easier to customize training to meet those needs, because you understand what’s caused those business problems, how training can help and what that training should look like.

In addition to having great facilitation skills, your instructors must understand the content they’re teaching. Highperforming training organizations strike a balance: They train their trainers in adult learning principles, and they look for subject matter experts (SMEs) with a disposition toward training to facilitate courses. Just shy of 60% of learning professionals rating this practice “very important,” it is the most important content development practice.

4

6

MAKE TRAINING ENGAGING AND INTERACTIVE

In order for training to be effective, it must engage learners. Afterall, people don’t learn when they aren’t interested and participating in learning. Our research found that the most important content development practice is making learning engaging and interactive. Create programs that capture learners’ attention; keep them engaged; and encourage interaction between learners, between instructors and learners, and between

ESTABLISH AGREEDUPON BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

Again, strategic alignment is key to training success. Unfortunately, with only about 20% of learning professionals reporting this practice as optimized, it is the second-lowest strategic alignment practice in terms of performance. When learning programs do not align with business goals, they do not drive sustainable impact. Work with business leaders to identify and agree on business goals; if those discussions

are outside of your control, be sure to meet with stakeholders to understand the goals of the business and align your programs accordingly.

7

ADAPT TRAINING TO THE ORGANIZATION’S UNIQUE BUSINESS OR CULTURE

In addition to customizing training for your business’ needs and your learners’ jobs, the culture of your organization is also a critical consideration. For example, if your company tends to be slow to adopt new technologies, and learners are reluctant to use new software programs, introducing a training program in virtual reality (VR) may not be a good idea for your business — regardless of how effective such a program might be in another company or industry.

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ASSESS OR MEASURE LEARNING OUTCOMES

As budgets tighten, it’s more important than ever for each business unit to prove its value — and the training function is, perhaps, under more pressure than most. Often seen as a cost center, training can be the first department to receive cuts during difficult times. With almost 60% of learning professionals

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saying this practice is “very important,” it is the only reporting and analysis practice to make it to the top 10 most important practices. Measuring learning outcomes, particularly as they impact business results, is the primary way you can avoid this scenario from happening to you and your team.

Assessing training is also important for process improvement. By identifying where training has succeeded and where it has failed, you can make changes to your programs and improve future results.

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USE RELEVANT EXAMPLES

Just as it’s important to customize training to your organization’s culture, you’ll want to make sure the examples and case studies you use in training reflect the industry you work in, the unique business your company does and the individual jobs your learners perform.

While not rated as the most important

content development practice, it does have the strongest performance ratings, with almost 30% of learning professionals indicating that their organization has optimized the practice. Even if the principles of the content are universal, your content will be more impactful if it’s relevant to your learners.

10

INVOLVE SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

You’re an expert in adult learning.

You’re an expert in management. You’re an expert in instructional design and program development. But you can’t be an expert in everything, which is why it’s important to involve SMEs in content development. They know the content best, so relying on their expertise to understand the material and distill it into easily digestible formats will help you make your training programs accurate and effective.

As we wrote in our recent report, “What Makes a Training Organization Great”:

Great training organizations are processoriented. They seek to deeply understand their problems and then use a clear, structured approach to solving them. They do not have the solution to every imaginable problem — but they do have systems in place that help them thoroughly understand and solve most problems.

These 10 best practices will help you make your training organization a process-oriented, problem-solving, goalachieving organization — positioning you for success and aligning you as a strategic partner to the business.

Alyssa Kaszycki is the learning product manager at Training Industry, Inc., and a doctoral candidate in the industrialorganizational psychology program at North Carolina State University. Taryn Oesch is the managing editor of digital content at Training Industry, Inc. and co-host of The Business of Learning.

Amy DuVernet, Ph.D., is the director of training manager development at Training Industry, Inc. Email the authors.

Collaborate with those who are external to your business, because they give you a new insight, a new look.

– Dr. Theresa R. Horne, CPTM, CSM, SHRM-SCP Senior Program Manager National Labor Relations Board

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM™) Program The Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTM™) program is the only credential focused specifically on the role of the training manager.

“Anatomy of the Modern Learning System” This research report explores how training processes should align in a complex modern learning organization faced with pressures to improve performance and control costs.

Training Industry Magazine: Learning Analytics The July/August 2019 issue of Training Industry Magazine focused on learning analytics.

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Training Industry Magazine: Strategic Alignment The September/October 2017 issue of Training Industry Magazine focused on strategic alignment, the most important practice of great training organizations.

The Business of Learning: The Training Industry Podcast The learning leader podcast from Training Industry features interviews with experts on topics that help training professionals more effectively manage the business of learning.

TRAINING IN THE TIME OF COVID HOW LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT IS RESPONDING

The L&D plans created at the beginning of 2020 have been quickly adjusted to face new realities and restrictions. This report explores, and seeks to quantify, that strategic change. This insight is valuable for both L&D leaders and suppliers in the corporate training market today — and offers critical insight on developing L&D plans for 2021.

Discover how your peers are identifying and seizing the unexpected opportunity to explore innovative new approaches to working and training.

LEARN MORE

Service professionals are often an untapped goldmine for increasing an organization’s revenue. Whether working in a call center or servicing a site, they are the frontline, trusted advisors of their customers. While sales professionals are often perceived as having an agenda – service professionals aren’t, giving them greater access to people, places and insights.

Service professionals have the opportunity to strengthen business relationships and gain more insights into customers’ needs. With this knowledge, they are better able to leverage their expertise and partner with customers to ensure those needs are met.

Service professionals are in the unique position to observe how the company’s products and services work in tandem with others. They can learn which competitors’ parts and products customers are using, and – with enough trust and skill – they can even learn why. Service professionals can observe opportunities to make valueadded recommendations regarding new products, enhanced services and customer training. They can ensure customers have

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the appropriate equipment and service level for their needs. Service professionals have the ability to demonstrate value to the customer, in turn strengthening customer relationships while adding value to the business.

Skillful communication will be your competitive edge.

Meeting Customer Needs While Maintaining Value Every customer has needs. Yes, they need to ensure the product is up and running, but they also have personal needs: to be assured, to be heard, to understand and to be understood. Often, service professionals are engaging with

a customer who is anxious, unsure and under pressure. Service professionals have an enormous opportunity to ease that pressure. These opportunities elevate service professionals’ role and consequently strengthen the relationship.

Repair people and technicians are often perceived as interchangeable; trusted advisors are not.

It’s also important to note that service professionals have an equal opportunity to damage relationships and cost the business money. With customers frequently under pressure, service professionals face many requests and demands. There is often added pressure placed on service professionals to provide free parts, services or training; do work beyond the stated scope of a job or underbill for services; provide services that are not covered under a warranty or work overtime for free. The overt cost of these concessions may seem obvious.

Even if a service professional made only two concessions a year, for a company of 200 reps, that can easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. For a company of a thousand reps, the loss enters the millions.

While service professionals may intend to strengthen relationships by agreeing to customer demands, there is more often a boomerang effect. When something is given away, the product or service is naturally devalued in the eyes of both the giver and the receiver.

The relationship weakens as customers expect more concessions in the future, and, as soon as a rep is unable to meet a demand, trust erodes.

Adding Differentiated Value With Soft Skills Most service professionals are proficient at the technical aspects of their job.

However, many are less proficient, or at least reluctant, when interacting with customers. It’s easy to overestimate the customer’s understanding and appreciation of all a service professional accomplished on any given call. While the solution may have ultimately been replacing a switch, that doesn’t account for the diagnostics the rep performed to arrive at that solution or any other service

Suggesting upgrades to new products or service contracts.

Recommending training.

Strengthening the customer relationship as a trusted advisor.

Ensuring customers have the appropriate equipment and service levels for their needs.

Identifying problems and recommending solutions beyond the reason for the call.

that might not appear on the invoice. The service professional must make sure their value is seen, and that requires engaging and involving the customer.

The most brilliant doctors in the world rely on the insights provided by their patients. Regardless of doctors’ technical and medical proficiency, their ability to efficiently diagnose and prescribe is directly linked to their ability to work with the patient. That requires skillful and purposeful probing, listening and responding. Patients can feel rushed, panicked or unsure, and our customers are the same. Service professionals must take a proactive role in skillfully and purposefully guiding the dialogue to accurately diagnose and prescribe a solution.

Enter COVID-19 According to one study from the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), 78% of service organizations polled completely stopped sending technicians to customer sites during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. With eight out of 10 companies restricting or eliminating on-site dispatches, service professionals are more frequently diagnosing and prescribing remotely.

Video technology is a powerful tool, but without that capability – and even with it – the service professional is completely dependent on their ability to evoke, elicit and glean the insights necessary to resolve issues. The ability to prescribe and install solutions remotely reduces the need for travel and the potential for exposure. And though the COVID-19 crisis will ease at some point, the obvious economic and logistical benefits to remote technical support will continue to add value in the new normal. Skillful communication will be your competitive edge.

Of course, sending service professionals to sites will be inevitable at times. That said, with restrictions surrounding travel and access to customer sites, representatives must be able to work more efficiently to understand the issue, solve problems, communicate updates, gather valuable insight and even make additional recommendations.

Further, as products and services evolve to keep up with the drastically changing environment, the value a trusted advisor can bring by proactively updating anxious customers is greater. People don’t know what they don’t know, and service professionals can become invaluable informants. To inform a customer requires involving a customer.

For example, according to a TSIA survey with service professionals in March, only 6% of those polled had reached out to their customers to discuss or renegotiate service level agreements in spite of disruptions to the organization and its processes.

People don’t know what they don’t know, and service professionals can become invaluable informants.

Though that percentage has increased somewhat since March, TSIA pointed out that, “While moving in the right direction, this lack of engagement remains a major gap for field service organizations.”

They go on to recommend proactive communications with customers: “These are not normal times. Normal contracts and communications are insufficient.”

For all of the necessary technical and product training that organizations must invest in for their service teams, it’s easy to overlook and underestimate the need for soft skills. However, leaving this goldmine untapped could be to the detriment of the service professional, the customer and the organization.

Tapping it will require organizations to acknowledge and invest in the cultivating service professionals that are able to communicate, involve, and work with their customers.

Caroline Murphy is the president of Acclivus R3 Solutions, a performance development organization specializing in inspiring and enabling sales, service and support teams in over 80 countries for over 40 years. Email Caroline.

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There are a lot of exciting developments trending in the world of learning and development (L&D). But, which ones should you be looking out for? From learning experience platforms (LXPs) to experience application programming interfaces (xAPIs) to microlearning, you’ve probably come across a few buzzwords lately. In this article, we want to move beyond the buzzwords and talk about the transitions that L&D is going through, and how these changes impact the strategy, learning platforms, tools and content delivery channels. We believe there are four main trends you should take into account.

IMPACT ON STRATEGY TREND 1. FROM FORMAL LEARNING TO INFORMAL LEARNING Many L&D departments are moving their focus away from formal learning.

Thanks to the work of Jay Cross and others, organizations are shifting their attention and budgets to informal learning. Formal training is essential for businesses, because each industry has an established set of rules and procedures that must be followed by all employees. For instance, compliance, security and onboarding are some of the mandatory training programs

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conducted by human resources (HR) in a formal classroom setup.

However, there are other business-critical areas, like product, process and technical training, which may occur outside of a structured formal learning environment.

We observe that more and more organizations are navigating in this direction.

This trend from formal to informal learning offers L&D and HR an opportunity to reach employees outside the training’s scheduled agenda, and ensure greater knowledge retention on business- and mission-critical content.

TREND 2. FROM A TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO A BOTTOM-UP APPROACH The days of companies telling employees how to develop and what to learn is over. A modern-day employee wants to determine what, where and when they learn. Due to this change in mindset, the old, top-down approach of the L&D department is no longer relevant. Now, it is all about facilitating the learner and moving toward a bottom-up approach.

This bottom-up approach has a huge impact on the role of L&D, which is moving toward a moderator and facilitator rather than a controller and a planner.

TREND 3. FROM LEARNING APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE SUPPORT Learning used to be about transferring knowledge. Today, however, knowledge and facts can be Googled and teaching people to do this is only the first step.

In the modern workplace, knowledge must be made available in the context of work in order to improve performance.

The goal of formal training is to help learners acquire knowledge and new skills. Performance support systems can provide learners with the information they need to complete tasks on the job.

TREND 4. FROM KNOWLEDGE FOCUS TO SKILLS FOCUS Having the knowledge available at your fingertips in a performance support environment is one thing, but we need to teach people what to do with that knowledge. Then, we can guide them to change behavior. It is not just about knowledge anymore. It is about applying skills in order to enhance performance.

THE DIAGRAM OF CHANGE These four trends form the axes of our diagram of change (see Figure 1).

Each quadrant covers one of the four

functional areas of interest for L&D (talent development, formal learning, knowledge sharing and performance support).

IMPACT ON LEARNING PLATFORMS AND TOOLS If we extend the four functional areas to the associated learning tools in the market, it is broadly classified as seen in Figure 2 on page 32. The grid has four quadrants – each representing a specific set of learning tools:

1

Talent management systems (TMSs) for talent development

2

Learning management systems (LMSs) for formal learning

3

Learning experience platforms (LXPs) for knowledge sharing

4

Performance support systems (PSSs) for performance and workflow support

TALENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS TMSs are HR-based and focus on recruitment and skills development. These tools are associated with employee development efforts, such as leadership development and performance management. TMSs take a top-down approach and are limited in what they can offer, because they don’t directly link to courses on the web or the organization’s learning system.

This lack of integration means TMSs have far less of an impact on learning than other tools in the quadrants.

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS LMSs are often key to a traditional eLearning approach. For a long time, they were the main channel for L&D departments to push and manage learning throughout their organizations.

LMSs are designed to support L&D by managing learning initiatives. They are not designed with learners in mind. Some LMSs try to get around this by improving their interfaces or adding features that encourage a

FIGURE 1. LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT DIAGRAM OF CHANGE SKILLS

SUPPORT

TALENT DEVELOPMENT

INFORMAL

PERFORMANCE SUPPORT

TOP-DOWN

BOTTOM-UP

FORMAL LEARNING

FORMAL

more learner-driven model. However, those changes are mostly cosmetic. At their core, LMSs remain administratorcentered and database-oriented. This doesn’t make them particularly useful for learners themselves.

ORGANIZATIONS ARE SHIFTING THEIR ATTENTION AND BUDGETS TO INFORMAL LEARNING.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE PLATFORMS With learners taking charge of their own development, employees want to be able to decide what, how and when they learn – from eLearning and microlearning courses to curated web content. As a result, employees want to find the right content at the moment they need it. That’s where LXPs come in. They’re platforms with smooth user interfaces and intelligent algorithms.

They also enable workers to discover content, get recommendations and find experts in their domains.

LXPs are a world apart from traditional, top-down LMS tools. You could use the analogy of streaming shows on Netflix versus watching TV channels with fixed

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

LEARNING

KNOWLEDGE

programming schedules. Does that mean LXPs are the magic bullet for all corporate learning problems? Probably not. As expert David Perring points out: “LXP is certainly not business smart, or fit for purpose for workflow resources or performance support. It’s the equivalent of walking into the library and searching for a book when what you really wanted was to simply land on the pages you needed.”

LXPs are a glorified version of the LMS. It’s a highly engaging user experience, often with the same content. It’s a mountain of content without any context for learners’ needs in the flow of work.

This can become a problem. Workflow support and on-demand, just-in-time help for employees is where we see the development of learning tools heading.

PERFORMANCE SUPPORT SYSTEMS PSSs – sometimes referred to as workflow support tools – aim to improve performance by helping employees solve problems on the go. They offer workers the practical information they need to solve a particular learning need while working. The attention to these solutions is rapidly growing.

IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND DISTRIBUTION Most formal eLearning courses are created by instructional designers.

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FIGURE 2. LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT TOOLS ON THE MARKET SKILLS

INFORMAL

SUPPORT

Talent management software is technology that human resource management professionals use to manage employees as a competitive advantage.

Performance support systems improve user performance.

They can help an organization reduce the cost of training staff while increasing productivity and performance.

BOTTOM-UP

TOP-DOWN

Learning management systems are software for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of educational courses, training programs or learning and development programs.

The LMS concept emerged directly from eLearning.

FORMAL

Although specialists in eLearning, they’re often not experts on the topics they’re developing content for. This traditional approach is too slow, too expensive and impossible to keep updated. The speed of business is ever increasing, and these performance resources are affected by change even more than formal learning content.

Employee-generated learning offers a useful solution. It turns the content creation process on its head by allowing employees to share their expertise. This allows them to take responsibility for creating their own training. By putting workers with the most expertise in charge of building and maintaining eLearning, you remove all those earlier downsides.

INFORMAL AND PERFORMANCE SUPPORT CONTENT The employee-generated learning approach is already working for many companies. Among the five moments of learning needs, it solves the need for new learning and more learning. But to change behavior, solve problems and apply learning, employees need resources.

Bob Mosher recommends that at least 80% of all content should come from experienced employees. It’s the only way to create these resources and keep them up to date. The content will not be delivered in the form of a course

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Learning experience systems provide a personalized, social online learning experience for users, typically employees at large enterprises ... LXPs are single-point of access, consumer-grade systems composed of integrated technologies for enabling learning.

KNOWLEDGE

LEARNING

but in the form of performance support content. We call these employeegenerated resources.

IN THE MODERN WORKPLACE, KNOWLEDGE MUST BE MADE AVAILABLE IN THE CONTEXT OF WORK IN ORDER TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO CREATE AND CURATE CONTENT By adding employee-generated learning and resources to the mix, you now have five methods for creating or curating content:

1

Bespoke formal courses: Content created by instructional designers, either from the L&D team or a third party.

2

Content platforms: Online platforms, such as LinkedIn Learning, offering default courses on topics.

3

Content curation: Collecting content in curation tools or in LXPs’ learning paths.

4

Performance support content: Create in performance support tools and can only be used inside those tools.

5

Employee-generated learning: Courses created and maintained by employees. This includes employee-generated resources, as employees share knowledge in the form of performance support resources.

Given the pandemic, more innovation is occurring in the way we learn and live.

New ways of communicating, routines, virtual rituals and more dictate the lives of remote workers. We believe that the trend from formal learning toward knowledge sharing and performance support will be strengthened by COVID-19. We hope that this diagram of change will help you map your current position and future goals, and enable you to pick the right direction with the right learning tools.

Kasper Spiro is the CEO of Easygenerator and has worked in education, performance management, content management, knowledge management and eLearning for over 30 years.

Videhi Bhamidi is a principal product consultant at Easygenerator and works at the intersection of didactics, user experience research, product strategy and thought leadership. Email Kasper and Videhi.

We have the talent

Today’s workplace requires a scalable workforce to keep up with your learning and development needs.

From virtual instructors who are skilled in teaching the latest soft skills and technology classes—to designers and content developers ready to convert or create customized training content, our experienced L&D talent has the specialized expertise to support your training plans.

Discover how easy it is to get a cost-effective, ~exible bench of talent.

LEARN MORE: cthetrainingassociates.com Soft Skills and Technical Training Instructional Design Content Development Training Delivery (ILT & VILT) Learning Strategy Direct Hire Services

One of the most critical influences on knowledge transfer, effective instructors are essential for building a great learning and development (L&D) organization. Research in childhood, adolescent and adult learning shows some instructors are more effective than others, but feedback and development efforts improve instructor performance. Instructors can have a variety of effects; one great instructor can influence hundreds, and even thousands, of learners. Therefore, it is critical for instructors to have the resources and support necessary to be successful.

New instructors, seasoned subject matter experts (SMEs) and lifelong educators can continue to grow and improve with constructive feedback. An effective evaluation practice focusing on instructor development includes data from multiple sources, collected via multiple methods. Observation is commonly used in academic settings but is less common in corporate training.

In this article, we will discuss the value of observations for instructors, learners and organizations; review best practices for designing and implementing an effective observation practice; and identify and overcome challenges.

VALUE OF OBSERVATIONS Systematic observations can yield rich qualitative data, as well as quantitative ratings regarding learners, instructors and the learning environment. Observations provide a source of developmental feedback for instructors and are often the only opportunity instructors have for receiving behavioral feedback. While learner reactions and performance are indicators of instructor direct effectiveness, observation of instructors’ behavior in the classroom provides information about instructor performance that instructors can directly control and improve.

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Lessons learned from the use of classroom observation in K-16 settings, such as the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, provide insights for developing an observation practice in corporate L&D. The MET Project was a three-year study to explore measures of teacher effectiveness and highlights the value of using observations for teacher development.

ANNOUNCE OBSERVATIONS TO REDUCE ANXIETY ASSOCIATED WITH BEING OBSERVED, AND KEEP THE FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT. TIPS FOR DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING AN EFFECTIVE OBSERVATION PRACTICE A well-designed observation practice provides a rich source of data to develop instructors and support comprehensive program evaluation. While this may seem like a linear process, it should be agile and iterative with lessons learned from each phase informing adjustments to subsequent iterations.

and instructor. For example, some behaviors are more relevant for face-toface instruction than for virtual training.

Models and instruments developed to improve instruction for adult learners will be more relevant in corporate L&D than those developed for younger learners.

• Determine who will observe. In academic settings, administrators and peers are often used as observers. In a corporate setting, observers could be internal to the L&D program or include administrators and peers who teach similar or different subjects. One unique consideration in L&D settings is that many instructors are not trained as professional educators, so it may be helpful to include observers who have experience as professional educators to provide SMEs with feedback related to teaching practices.

• Train observers to rate using the rubric and assess interrater reliability.

If possible, use multiple observers to increase reliability. Raters should be trained to use the rubric and to develop a shared mental model. In addition to assessing interrater reliability as part of observer training, reliability should be monitored over time, and there will

Live Observation

Planning is critical and lays the foundation for all subsequent steps.

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• Determine the method of observation.

Should observations be in-person, recorded or both? There are pros and cons for both scenarios (see sidebar).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a massive shift to virtual instruction, which presents the opportunity to record virtual sessions for feedback. Recording sessions, even when doing live observation, is a good practice given its benefits and limited drawbacks.

• Create an observation sampling plan.

An observation sampling plan ensures having enough observations from multiple sources across courses and instructors. Recording all sessions for possible observation is a great practice if feasible, but sessions can be selected in advance by the organization or even by instructors. Some best practices from the MET Project include allowing teachers to choose their own recordings for observations, supplementing full-length observations with shorter observations, and announcing observations to reduce

OBSERVE LIVE OR RECORD SESSIONS?

STEP 1: PLAN

• Create or select an observation rubric to measure instructional behaviors.

These behaviors should be linked to learner and program outcomes and provide actionable insights to help instructors improve. Rubrics should include quantitative ratings as well as opportunities for written feedback.

Several models and instruments of instructor performance have been developed and used for K-12 and adult learning contexts. Select the most appropriate model or instrument based on the training content, context

likely be a need for follow-up training to ensure raters remain calibrated. If it’s not possible to have multiple raters, have a single observer do multiple observations.

Pros

Cons

Communicates instructors are valued, and the organization is invested in their development.

Presence of an observer could affect instructor performance and learner behavior.

Provides an immersive experience for the observer and the opportunity to observe the learning context and interactions between learners.

Time-consuming and resource intensive.

Difficult to schedule.

Can be conducted in face-to-face and virtual sessions.

Record Sessions

Less intrusive than live observation.

Allows multiple observers to view the same sessions more easily.

Provides observers with flexibility to pause and rewind as needed.

Provides a record of the session that instructors can view as part of developmental feedback conversations.

Expense of recording equipment for live sessions and potential need for technology support to resolve issues.

GOAL-SETTING TEMPLATE

OVERCOMING BARRIERS

Individual goal: Link to organizational goals: Measure(s) of success: Actions What do you need to do to accomplish the goal?

Resources What resources do you need to accomplish the action?

Timeframe When will you have completed the action?

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Adapted from: Silsbee, D. (2010). The Mindful Coach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

anxiety associated with being observed and keep the focus on development.

upon areas for improvement, as well as describe how their personal goals support organizational goals.

STEP 2: OBSERVE Gather feedback from observers to determine if adjustments need to be made to the rubric or sampling plan.

Rating quality should be monitored by assessing observer reliability and retraining observers as needed.

STEP 3: SELF-DISCOVERY AND COACHING

DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING AN EFFECTIVE OBSERVATION PROCESS CREATES A WIN-WIN-WIN FOR INSTRUCTORS, LEARNERS AND THE L&D ENTERPRISE.

Linking and presenting data from observation with other sources (e.g., learner survey and assessment data) can help instructors reflect on instructional practices, impact on learning and identify areas for improvement. Instructors can engage in self-discovery and reflection and participate in developmental feedback conversations with a manager or coach by reviewing data from these sources. Protect learner confidentiality when data from learners is provided, such as survey data, particularly when class sizes are small or still in session at the time instructors receive feedback.

Coaches can help instructors interpret feedback, identify areas for improvement and determine what actions instructors should take to incorporate feedback in their teaching practices.

Once an instructor or coach chooses an area of improvement, they should define a specific individual goal for the area, identify the related organizational goals and specify the measure of success. Each goal should be supported by a list of specific actions, and those actions should be accompanied by a list of resources needed. It is critical that organizations provide resources for IDPs to be implemented effectively.

See sidebar for a sample goal-setting template for instructor development.

STEP 4: INSTRUCTOR DEVELOPMENT PLAN

STEP 5: COMMIT, ACT AND EVALUATE

Working with a lead instructor, manager or coach, instructors can create an instructor development plan (IDP) focusing on chosen areas for improvement. This IDP should include SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound) to address the agreed

Instructors, learners, coaches and business leaders must commit to instructor development and improvement by supporting behavior-based changes. These efforts need to be evaluated over time to determine if the changes are having a positive impact on organizational outcomes.

There are many perceived barriers to conducting observations, but these barriers can be overcome with the right approach.

• Negative view of observations by instructors. Many instructors are not comfortable being observed or fear negative consequences. Create a positive feedback culture, and use observations to focus on development and improvement rather than a purely administrative process.

• Observation itself can impact the behavior we are trying to observe.

Develop a supportive feedback culture, observe regularly and make observation less obtrusive by using technology (i.e., video recording).

• Observation only captures a snapshot of behavior. Develop sampling plans to ensure multiple observations of an instructor at different points in the training course.

• Observation is time-consuming, resource intensive and difficult to integrate.

Create an efficient plan for observation and leverage technology to support collection and display of observation data along with other key metrics of instructor effectiveness. Technology cannot only be used to systemically capture ratings but also to provide feedback, develop and monitor the success of IDPs. Developing and implementing an effective observation process creates a win-winwin for instructors, learners and the L&D enterprise. Adding an observation practice into an existing feedback practice allows stakeholders to combine and compare data from multiple sources. Done correctly and combined with other sources of data, observations can have a positive impact on teacher development, as well as learning and organizational outcomes.

Dr. Reanna Harman is a director, and Mrs. Elisabeth Dezern is a client implementation and experience manager at ALPS Insights.

ALPS Insights provides L&D evaluation, analytics and insights through its software platform, ALPS Ibex™, as well as consulting and analytics services. Email Reanna and Elisabeth.

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HOW TO LEVERAGE

BUSINESS ACUMEN TO CREATE A

FUTURE-READY ORGANIZATION

BY STEVEN HAINES

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Everyone’s talking about the future of business, and conversations continually center around transformation and change. It may go without saying that talent management has never been more important. Leaders across business functions will benefit greatly from solid guidance on a popular term with many definitions: business acumen.

The cultivation of business acumen contributes to the creation of future-ready companies – companies that can operate in an increasingly competitive market.

WHAT IS BUSINESS ACUMEN? If you ask 20 people to define business acumen, you’ll likely get 20 different responses. It’s a term most business professionals feel confident in their interpretations of. However, to minimize any further variability, let’s start with a definition: “Business acumen is a portfolio of skills, behaviors and capabilities

needed to support an organization in the achievement of its financial and strategic goals.”

Consider business acumen a skill set that is cultivated as in the trade-craft tradition. This is an important way to think about business acumen, because everyone comes into an organization with varied functional experiences and paradigms. Employees, regardless of function, need to understand the big picture of the business and how various dimensions of the business operate in collaboration with one another. They also must be able to consider a host of business dimensions as they collaborate.

With this, I strongly advocate that leaders take a more active role in the cultivation of business acumen across the enterprise.

Even in companies where functional leaders carry out routine development of employees, it’s often not to improve business acumen. Leadership development programs add value by helping people across functions

be better in leadership. However, based on research for my book, “The Business Acumen Handbook,” these development efforts are not instilling the business of business in the minds of employees who have an opportunity to help the organization achieve its goals. That responsibility often falls on high-potential employees and those in leadership training. A more granular approach is needed. There’s the “what” to develop, and then there’s “how” to develop it. Let’s talk about the “what” first, using a visual model called, “The Business Acumen Canvas.”

THE BUSINESS ACUMEN CANVAS The Business Acumen Canvas was created to highlight three dimensions of business acumen shown in Figure 1: 1. External orientation 2. Mindset 3. Capability

FIGURE 1. THE BUSINESS ACUMEN CANVAS EXTERNAL VALUE PROPOSITION

MARKET SEGMENTS

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

REVENUE MODEL

MINDSET THINKING STRATEGICALLY

BUILDING INTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

CULTIVATING EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS

CAPABILITY UTILIZING TEAMS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE

USING PROCESSES USED TO GET WORK DONE

MANAGING PROJECTS TARGETED AT GOAL ATTAINMENT

UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCTS SOLD BY THE FIRM

UNDERSTANDING FINANCE AND FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

FORMULATING GOALS AND STRATEGIES

ANALYZING DATA TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AND MAKE DECISIONS

ASSESSING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

BEING OUTCOME DRIVEN DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS

TAKING ACTION

ASSUMING RESPONSIBILITY

GLOBAL PRESENCE

EARNING CREDIBILITY

INDUSTRY/SECTOR TRENDS

TECHNOLOGY © BUSINESS ACUMEN INSTITUTE

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External Orientation. External orientation is where we start. The firm’s very existence is established on a thorough understanding of targeted customers and their needs. This also includes an understanding of the firm’s competitive capability and how it’s positioned to achieve success. With this, every decision considers the impact on customers and the firms market posture. Executives are urged to mute functional agendas in business decisions, so that actions contribute to the strategic goals of the company. When employees comprehend the business’s orientation, they’re building a foundation for business acumen.

THE CULTIVATION OF BUSINESS ACUMEN CONTRIBUTES TO THE CREATION OF FUTUREREADY COMPANIES.

Mindset. Mindset consists of the mental models and operational paradigms of employees. Most executives want their emerging leaders and managers to think strategically. However, a solid context is needed. Strategic thinking enables employees to knit together various dimensions of the business. This means that they can identify and solve problems or determine how to finetune a process to achieve greater efficiency. With the right mindset, employees achieve selfempowerment as they build capital and develop the ability to navigate the business culture to get things done.

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Capability. This area of the model addresses day-to-day business operations. There are eight key capabilities that must be developed in order to attain an optimal level of business acumen. These include: 1. Utilizing teams and influencing people. The business of business is also the business of people. People represent the glue holding together the execution and management of tasks within the context of the entire business acumen canvas.

2. Using processes to get work done.

Interconnected workflows are the heart of the workplace. Mastery of workflows is the key to clarity around roles, efficiency and outcomes.

It’s also the key to understanding customers.

When employees understand the world of customers, they can contribute to the delivery of compelling value propositions.

3. Managing projects targeted at goal attainment. Every person should understand project management and time, cost, and scope in the achievement explicit goals. It’s related to the first two items and represents how work gets done.

4. Understanding the products sold by the firm. Products are the lifeblood of business. Key employees should understand the products sold, the needs of the customer, the competitors in the market, the market share obtained and the revenue attained.

5. Understanding finance and financial analysis. Every business decision made has financial consequences.

Therefore, an understanding of accounting, finance, budgeting and variance analysis is vital. As a word of caution, many put too much emphasis on this area in the cultivation of business acumen. It is certainly a vital dimension but not to the exclusion of the other areas.

6. Formulating goals and strategies.

Every leader and manager should be

thinking about what’s next. To do so, they must have the data to evaluate the past and present, including customers served, industry trends and financial contributions. They must synthesize data, uncover patterns and contribute to the decisions that impact the future vision, goals and strategies of the firm.

7. Analyzing data to solve problems and make decisions. Each aspect of the business contains a treasure trove of data and insights. Decisions might have to be made on a moment’s notice or require deeper analysis. The ability to break down a situation, assess anomalies, and come to a conclusion impacts business and team functions.

This capability provides a strong adhesive for the items in this list.

8. Assessing business performance.

Perhaps the single most important characteristic is a person’s ability to see how things are going and recognize when they’re going off the rails.

Each of these items cannot be seen just from one viewpoint or business perspective. The skilled business person, regardless of the function they serve, should be able to build an integrated mental model, so that the right practices are implemented at the right times.

HOW TO CULTIVATE BUSINESS ACUMEN Most people who work in complex companies are overwhelmed. Employees are trying to execute a number of tasks and processes correctly and urgently.

Some things happen so fast that it’s hard to structure work. For executives and talent managers, harnessing and optimizing the capabilities of employees can be a daunting task.

With an effective organizational strategy, companies can build business acumen in employees. It’s not the kind of thing

FIGURE 2. SIMPLE ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY TO IMPROVE BUSINESS ACUMEN

ASSESS BUSINESS ACUMEN

ASSESS GAPS

FUTURE STATE

ACTION STEPS

you orchestrate overnight, but it is feasible with a simple process, shown in Figure 2.

upskilling, experiential work projects for employees and coaching.

1. Assess business acumen. Evaluate the skills and capabilities of your targeted population. Each area of the Business Acumen Canvas can be put under a microscope. Examine each area as a “cluster” of work, and assess what people know versus what people do. Exposing employees to a simple self-assessment can speed things along. After taking this assessment, they can share their results with managers to finetune goals and plans.

5. Evaluate results. All strategies require evaluation. Your future state and action steps should be harmonized, requiring you to reassess business acumen gaps and goals to help your company on its organizational journey.

2. Assess gaps. Identifying key gaps is an important part of any strategy. After examining data in each area, highlight major areas requiring attention. In strategic planning, an examination of strengths and weaknesses often leads to ideas about what’s possible and provides input on next steps.

3. Future state. Determine what’s most important, so you can envision your organization’s future. This requires collaborative leadership. Your job is to identify developmental areas that will help the company gain a larger share of the market, innovate new products or deliver better customer experience.

Then, there’s greater meaning to the goals you derive, including an ability to improve return on investment and foster greater customer satisfaction.

4. Action steps. Your action steps represent the outcome of the gap analysis, vetted against future business goals. These could include

WHEN EMPLOYEES COMPREHEND THE BUSINESS’S ORIENTATION, THEY’RE BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR BUSINESS ACUMEN.

EVALUATE RESULTS

Business acumen is multi-dimensional and dynamic, and it must be knitted into the fabric of the organization. While there isn’t a codified body of knowledge for business acumen, it is my aim to provide a foundation, so that you’re able to contribute to organizational success.

When speaking about fabric of an organization, I think of the work of Charlie Munger, vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway. There’s a quote from Munger I’ve summarized to reinforce my message to you: “…You can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework… you don’t have them in a usable form…

You’ve got to have models in your head… And the models have to come from multiple disciplines, because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department…”

Organizational and business intelligence isn’t achieved overnight.

The accumulated knowledge, experience and abilities to correlate actions to outcomes form the foundation of business acumen.

SUMMARY This article shared a solid framework to enable you to understand the foundations of business acumen.

Steven Haines is the chief executive officer of Business Acumen Institute and author of “The Business Acumen Handbook.” He’s also written “The Product Manager’s Survival Guide” (2e) and “The Product Manager’s Desk Reference” (2e). Email Steven.

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ACCOUNTING FOR

LEARNING INVESTMENTS ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT AND

BY AJAY M. PANGARKAR, CTDP, FCPA, FCMA, AND TERESA KIRKWOOD, CTDP

Learning and development (L&D) practitioners dread the moment internal stakeholders ask them to build a business case for learning efforts.

Learning leaders often respond by asking, “Why? This is not my responsibility.” More frequently, they may wonder, “How do I even address this concern?”

Fundamentally, learning accountability and stakeholder support is about

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clear communication. Communicating intent, however, requires speaking in a language stakeholders respect and recognize. Using your own interpretation and methodologies will not gain stakeholder favor, and it will guarantee you to lose credibility.

Effective communication is about business and financial literacy. This requires the learning function to accept it is a business function expected to deliver business

results. Embracing this fact allows learning leaders to develop robust and valued learning efforts.

This is not to say you need to become a business expert. Rather, business credibility and stakeholder accountability are about literacy.

There are four business accountability aspects to consider to gain support for your learning initiatives, including discerning between cost and profit

and performance. Practitioners are discouraged when stakeholders refer to learning as a cost to the business.

It implies a negative connotation as the anthesis of profit. Unfortunately, this myth is further reinforced when stakeholders focus on reducing costs for key business decisions.

A cost center is a business unit that incurs expenses but does not generate revenue. Learning is a classic cost center example along with accounting, marketing, human resources, production, and information technology (IT) departments.

When stakeholders refer to you as a cost, they are not disparaging your efforts. They are categorizing financial accountability based on how budget is allocated. It is about accurately measuring financial performance following specific accounting guidelines.

Stakeholders evaluate performance by how the learning function manages their budget. Practitioners instinctively believe they must reduce costs to improve performance. This is inaccurate and can lead to declined performance.

Stakeholders are actually evaluating how well you’re using money to positively affect performance. This is what stakeholders call a cost-benefit relationship.

Alternatively, a profit center incurs costs to drive revenue. Profit center managers are evaluated on how well they manage costs to maximize revenue.

centers, differentiating expenses and investments, fostering business growth, and improving performance.

Let’s take a deeper look at each one.

1. DISCERNING BETWEEN COST AND PROFIT CENTERS

Practitioners constantly debate between cost and profit centers. The difference is about delineating financial accountability

Embrace being a cost center, and show how you use money to create learning performance value. Second, the profit center, your client, pays for the costs of your learning solution.

Prove to them your learning cost will deliver value.

2. DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN

EXPENSE AND INVESTMENTS

Practitioners also misapply expense and investment when developing

business cases. Stakeholders make relevant distinctions between the two when approving learning initiatives, specifically when it involves technology.

Practitioners often consider expenses negative and investments as value adding. Stakeholders see either one as adding value. Both, in theory, are expected costs to the organization, so – if you are to propose training in either context – then initiatives should demonstrate potential value.

Fundamentally, learning accountability and stakeholder support is about clear communication.

The difference is mostly about financial accountability and performance.

Training is meant to develop employees during the time it occurs.

A training expense is intangible since employee knowledge is not proprietary to the organization and can walk out of the door at any time. Decisionmakers recognize training is about improving employee performance, so training is successful only when it proves value for its initial expense.

This is the precarious variable training practitioners fail to demonstrate.

Investment, or capital investment, is a cost for a long-term growth strategy.

By definition, capital investments are typically tangible items meant to increase operational capacity, capture a larger share of the market and generate more revenue for the organization. For learning, capital investments are typically infrastructure requirements – everything from actual classrooms to learning technology.

Casually implying learning is an investment is factually inaccurate and misleading. Stakeholders apply precise return on investment (ROI) evaluation

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methodologies to determine how these long-term costs add value for the organization. This is not the misleading training ROI business leaders will never accept or acknowledge.

intensive activity requiring significant investments in technology. Trying to convince decision-makers to purchase the latest and greatest library of eLearning courses or learning management system (LMS) is out of the question if you don’t demonstrate long-term organizational value. Build a proper capital investment case by working with your finance and IT departments prior to presenting a learning need to stakeholders.

There are two aspects of evaluating return on learning costs: the expenses within an organizational capital investment and the return on investment. Learning cost is one of many costs included when evaluating an organization’s capital investments.

Without affecting the integrity and value of the investment, stakeholders attempt to reduce costs as much as possible. They will certainly ask you to find ways to lower costs. Do so without affecting the overall value of the investment but also have the courage to say when reductions may have adverse effects.

3. FOSTERING

This mindset also applies for your learning infrastructure needs.

Learning is a complex and capital-

Break-even occurs when profit-center activities exceed costs and start earning profit. More than just compiling total costs,

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BUSINESS GROWTH

Operational support activities, such as learning, must enable primary profit-center activities.

Proposing costs must not adversely impact the profit-center analysis.

stakeholders compare the relationship between earned revenue and incurred costs with product and service volume activity. Increased or new fixed costs should lead to more volume activity leading to increased revenue.

Typically, learning initiatives are additional fixed costs to the profit center. This implies that additional training costs should, albeit indirectly, contribute to increasing profitability.

Practitioners misleadingly believe proving value for learning efforts is about covering costs or demonstrating a direct correlation to profitability.

For stakeholders, it is not about covering cost. It is about how additional learning costs affect primary business profitability.

Operational leaders must maintain or improve organizational contribution margin (CM). The CM represents the company’s business profit before

Learning accountability is about embracing learning’s business role and positioning efforts as value adding.

Ajay M. Pangarkar, CTDP, FCPA, FCMA, and Teresa Kirkwood, CTDP, are the founders of CentralKnowledge. com and LearningSourceonline.com.

They are employee performance management experts and authors, most recently publishing the book, “The Trainer’s Balanced Scorecard: A Complete Resource for Linking Learning to Organizational Strategy.”

Email Ajay and Teresa.

TAKEAWAYS deducting fixed costs. Since learning is a fixed cost, stakeholders want to know what the incremental revenue will be to cover total fixed costs.

Account for all learning costs, especially for any learning technology or infrastructure requirements. Before suggesting buying more technology, evaluate existing organizational resources and only consider acquiring what will add long-term organizational value. Then, proactively work with the operational area requiring your support.

Afterall, they fund your learning costs and are under tremendous pressure to improve profitability.

4. IMPROVING PERFORMANCE, NOT PROFIT

Stakeholders do not expect any operational support function to demonstrate profitability, but they expect it to demonstrate value. Learning practitioners must demonstrate how training can deliver tangible results. By identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) and investigating how they relate to employee roles, learning leaders can communicate value.

Performance improvement is what stakeholders expect. They explicitly develop a performance framework focusing on operational activities and strategic expectations. This

performance framework is a business methodology, not a learning tool. The framework offers answers to target learning interventions. You simply need to ask the right people the right questions to help achieve key performance metrics.

Begin by identifying the organizations’ strategic objectives. Second, identify operational value chain activities directly contributing to strategic expectations.

Next, investigate interdependencies among activities through your organization’s performance framework, and conduct a needs assessment to identify potential learning opportunities. Finally, map these learning opportunities back to the primary activities’ existing KPIs. Practitioners are unable to accept that stakeholders value organizational learning. The issue is about business and operational accountability; it is not about reducing costs or proving profitability. Learning accountability is about embracing learning’s business role and positioning efforts as value adding. Develop relationships with value-chain operational leaders and focus on performance results. Start now to develop tangible performance solutions that resolve and support operational concerns and contribute directly to strategic value creation.

Doing so will allow you to demonstrate lasting organizational impact.

Here are five key takeaways for you to apply to demonstrate stakeholder accountability for learning: 1. Stop Proving Learning, and Start Showing Application Stakeholders don’t care about employee learning; they care about whether they can improve their performance. Get them to apply the skills.

2. Prove A Cost-Benefit Relationship Apply a cost-benefit analysis to determine how learning will achieve benefits while preserving savings.

Show how initiatives’ benefits outweigh the costs.

3. Demonstrate Break-Even Relationship Conduct a cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis showing the amount of revenue dollars required to cover the learning investment cost.

4. Develop Capital Investment Projections Work closely with other business functions to build a proper investment case prior to presenting learning needs to decision-makers.

5. Tie to Key Performance Metrics Identify the primary business activities’ key operational performance metrics.

Improve these KPIs to demonstrate learning value.

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CASEBOOK

LESSONS LEARNED: A SHARED SERVICES IMPLEMENTATION

BY JASON WEBER

In 2018, while working for a state agency in the Midwest, our team was tasked with aligning human resources functions across 25 state agencies into one centralized team under a new legislative mandate. While this new team would go from 40 employees to 400 employees overnight, the training and development function would shift from small teams assigned to specific agencies to one enterprise training and development team of 25. The scope of training for the trainers shifted from one agency to now considering the design and delivery of training for over 35,000 employees across 25 agencies.

WE’RE DOING WHAT?!

My first announcement to the training and development team at each agency was met with mixed reactions.

Responses ranged from excitement to resistance toward the shared services implementation. Within the negative responses, I learned some had yet to hear that they were part of a shared services implementation.

Instead of discussing what this new model of training and development would look like, I spent the first six months delivering informational presentations to leadership and team members about the benefits this change would bring.

Additionally, the lead organization did not have a strong reputation around training and development. This required me to build relationships, so employees

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understood the standards that were being set for this new team.

WHAT ABOUT ME? As relationships formed across agencies, another level of relationship development was becoming more visible. During my initial meetings with my new team, there was an overwhelming concern about their current roles. Employees also worried that they would be forced into something that would negatively impact them.

PATIENCE IS KEY. BE WILLING TO LISTEN AND BE ATTENTIVE TO THE NEEDS OF THOSE AROUND YOU.

Each team member came from agencies with varying methods of delivery.

Some had a learning management system (LMS); some didn’t. Some used eLearning software; some didn’t. Some only contracted with external speakers, so they didn’t have experience with training delivery. Ideally, I would identify commonly used tools and move toward integrating the entire team under one

technology package. Unfortunately, because these agencies used different tools that had varying end dates, different pricing structures and different standards for what qualified effective training technology, there were a number of challenges that quickly halted our movement.

We were also advised that our organization would be required to reduce its operating budget by a significant amount. As a result, I had staff who wanted training to use the tools that their peers were using but lacked the funds to do so.

LET’S MOVE FORWARD Recognizing that there were a number of dynamics that could halt progress for our team, we needed to move forward. We knew it was going to be messy, and we knew there would be a lot of changes. Even with this knowledge, there were two key structures to establish: our team organizational structure and our training catalog.

Organizational Structure When I took over, I was handed a word document that included the structure in Figure 1. I was told that this was the plan for an enterprise training and development team. I asked questions but ultimately ended up with, “You figure it out.”

FIGURE 1.

to the staff I moved into the enterprise training team.

Enterprise Training Director

eLearning

Training

Initially, I wanted to leverage the diverse skill sets of my team and place them in roles that highlighted their strengths.

When I stated this, there was push back against separating teams that were already working together. Even though we were moving into a shared services model, a number of agencies were resistant to let go of their teams. With that, the first version of our organizational chart looked like Figure 2.

FIGURE 2.

Enterprise Training Director

Training Catalog As we moved to the shared services model, we gained access to some high quality training. While we were initially developing our offering list, we were met with resistance about teams training employees who were not part of their organization. To understand what agencies were looking for, we conducted a number of interviews and surveys that identified current offerings, past offerings that had been eliminated and a wish list of offerings employees would like to see in their organization.

Once this information was compiled, over 70 training topics were identified. To align these offerings, our team decided to pursue four key development areas:

Enterprise Training Team

Region 1

This structure allowed me to pilot enterprise initiatives with agencies that were open to them. We were then able to share success stories regarding the enterprise team’s initiatives. Other agencies quickly saw the benefits of the enterprise training team and began making requests for the same training to be provided in their regions.

• New employee orientation Region 2

‘Other Agencies’

This model allowed me to dedicate staff to focus on all agencies while allowing those committed to their organization to remain with them. Region 1 was dedicated to one agency, region 2 was dedicated to one agency, and the final team continued to leverage employees previously assigned to them in addition

• New supervisor orientation • Enterprise management development academy • Employee and leader development sessions Once we established both our organizational structure and training catalog, we had a consistent message to share.

This message allowed us to answer questions regarding who we were and

what we did. With a shared message, a level of confidence radiated within our team.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? While the number of lessons learned is extensive, learning leaders should consider the following in their own organizations: • Relationships are essential. Take time to get to know the people you work with and for. Develop an understanding of their needs and focus on developing a collaborative environment.

• A foundation is critical. For us, it was an organizational chart and training catalog.

Ensure your team has something to build on. Looking back, many of the challenges we faced were self-created.

Develop a clear foundation for people to start building on.

• Patience is key. Be willing to listen and be attentive to the needs of those around you. The little things can be game changers in the long run.

• Seek the whole picture. When organizations and teams are going through change, there is a lot of information circulating. Be willing to hear what people are saying, but make sure you are seeing the whole picture before reacting. Ask questions and know that we all see things a little differently. Recognize this, and be open to other perspectives.

Jason Weber is currently the associate vice president of people development for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. In this role, Jason is responsible for developing valuebased leadership development training programs and one-on-one and team coaching internally for all health sciences team members. Email Jason.

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INSIGHTS FOR THE MODERN LEARNING LEADER TICE Virtual Conferences bring learning leaders together to share insights on the most prevalent challenges facing today’s training professionals.

Sessions are always free and can be accessed following the event.

REGISTER NOW OR WATCH PAST VIRTUAL CONFERENCES AT trainingindustry.com/ticevirtual.

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TICE Virtual Conferences are pre-qualified for credit hours with leading human resources and training certifications.

STELLA LEE, PH.D.

WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF L&D: STEPPING UP IN THE AGE OF DISRUPTION The proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” has never rung more true.

As a result of the global pandemic, our lives have changed dramatically in the first half of 2020 and will continue to change in the future. Organizations are experiencing a multitude of unexpected challenges as a result of new consumer demands, massive unemployment, and the need for new or updated skill sets.

However, with challenge comes opportunity. Now is the time for teams, learning and development (L&D) teams in particular, to step up and be the department that seizes this moment to reevaluate priorities and innovate to support the business.

To get started, here are some ideas for learning leaders to consider: UPPING OUR DIGITAL LEARNING GAME L&D must scale existing digital learning capabilities. Organizations that already have learning technologies in place have an advantage. However, it’s not too late to up your digital learning game. Many just-in-time technologies are available and offer extended-trial versions for free. Additionally, cloud-based solutions can be implemented quickly.

Think outside of the learning management system (LMS) box, and try tools with a relatively flat learning curve and modern user interface. However, keep in mind that quality online learning contains well-designed and pedagogically grounded content.

LEVERAGING IN-HOUSE DATA The shift to working from home and remote learning came with an increasing amount of staff-generated data. In addition to LMSs, many organizations have online learning libraries, web conferencing software, learning experience platforms (LXPs) and employee knowledge sharing repositories. With the amount of data we glean from these systems, L&D has an opportunity to leverage data to gain a greater understanding of how people learn Data analytics is more compelling than ever, as lean operations will be the norm for the foreseeable future.

To justify expenditure, L&D must make use of data to prove the value of their learning initiatives.

L&D MUST MAKE USE OF DATA TO PROVE THE VALUE OF THEIR LEARNING INITIATIVES. UPSKILLING AND RESKILLING TAKE CENTER STAGE In the global pandemic, employees’ appetite for learning is voracious. With many people unemployed or displaced, employees need access to resources that will guide them through transitions and aid in the development of new abilities. L&D needs to pivot to a more flexible approach to support learning with the flow of work.

Learning professionals are perfectly positioned to work with business units to

conduct skill gaps inventories, develop strategies, repurpose current learning and performance support materials, set up internal support mechanisms, and gain executive buy-in.

HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGY As we deploy technologies for virtual meetings, social learning and collaboration, L&D professionals must consider the user experience. Some learners have little exposure to these tools and are simultaneously navigating the new normal. For others, it is a time for deepening their understanding of technology. Regardless, working and learning from home can leave learners feeling disconnected.

As online interactions increase, there is a greater need to connect on a more emotional level. Ethical and responsible design methodology considers how to make technologies accessible to people of all abilities and backgrounds. L&D can adopt this practice in the design of online learning experiences.

I am an optimist, and my hope is that L&D will shine amid disruption by adding value to the business with innovation and agility.

Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience in consulting, planning, designing, implementing, and measuring learning initiatives. Today, her focus is on large-scale learning projects including LMS evaluation and implementation, learning analytics, and artificial intelligent applications in learning. Email Stella.

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MICHELLE EGGLESTON SCHWARTZ

LEARNER MINDSET

WINNING THE BATTLE FOR LEARNER ENGAGEMENT

The COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges for learning leaders, and engagement is at the top of the list, according to Training Industry’s pulse survey research. Employees are having to combat a multitude of distractions, from working remotely to technology issues to increased levels of stress and anxiety. The dynamics of work have changed and so has learning.

In the midst of all this chaos, who wants to attend a training program that has no clear, direct benefits? Let’s be honest: Absolutely no one. If not managed effectively, training can be viewed as a waste of time and resources by learners and stakeholders.

Great training organizations do not leave training outcomes to chance; they conduct a thorough needs analysis to close skills gaps and strategically align training to company goals and objectives.

When presented with training opportunities, employees immediately wonder, “What’s in it for me?” This phrase is well known in the training industry and serves as a barrier to learning transfer.

To overcome this barrier, learning and development (L&D) professionals must answer the question and communicate the benefits of training to learners – much like a marketing professional.

It’s easy to overlook the fact that training is a product, and products need to be marketed to consumers to increase gains. For training, this means ensuring learners understand how the training relates to their job role and how it will improve their performance.

To be truly effective, L&D professionals

must engage learners before the training takes place.

Oftentimes, there is so much focus on making the training itself engaging – from selecting the most appropriate content and delivery method to embedding interactive tools like quizzes, videos or games. Don’t get me wrong, training should certainly be engaging. But engagement becomes an uphill battle if the learner begins training without a sense of purpose. At that point, learners need all the “bells and whistles” to capture and maintain their attention.

In today’s work environment, employees are distracted and struggling to focus. The dynamics of work are certainly different – but L&D can help. Let’s examine a few ways L&D can help cut through the noise and improve employee engagement.

ENGAGEMENT BECOMES AN UPHILL BATTLE IF THE LEARNER BEGINS TRAINING WITHOUT A SENSE OF PURPOSE. UPSKILL LEADERS Now more than ever, managers should be respectful of their employees’ time and the responsibilities they are juggling in their personal lives. Now is not the time to create busy work for employees; now is the time to lean in and listen to your employees. Empathy, listening and emotional intelligence are critical skills for leaders in today’s work environment.

By strengthening these skills, leaders can

better support employees on their journey to the new normal.

ADOPT A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT Anxiety and stress are often viewed as personal issues, but they impact our professional lives tremendously. A holistic approach to training goes beyond developing the technical skills that employees need to complete their job – it also accounts for the emotional and social development of employees. Organizations that prioritize employee well-being create a culture where employees feel valued and empowered to succeed.

ALIGN TRAINING TO SHIFTING PRIORITIES Odds are your business goals have shifted due to the impacts of the pandemic.

Keeping employees aware of these changes is critical. The entire organization, including training and development, needs to be aligned around these new goals to ensure success. Transparency can instill confidence in employees as they navigate change and relieve anxiety regarding the state of the business.

Learner engagement is a challenge in today’s work environment, but it doesn’t need to be an uphill battle. A thoughtful and holistic approach to training can elevate employee performance when stress is at an all time high.

Michelle Eggleston Schwartz is the editorial director of Training Industry, Inc. Email Michelle.

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CLOSING DEALS

SALES ENABLEMENT COMES OF AGE: CHORUS.AI CLOSES $45 MILLION SERIES C FOR “CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE” TECHNOLOGY

BY TARYN OESCH

Sales enablement refers to the processes, tools and training that support salespeople. The term was initially defined by Forrester in 2008, but as a function, sales enablement has come of age in recent years, thanks to advances in technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

As a result, much funding is going into sales enablement platform providers.

For example, Chorus.ai serves as a “conversation intelligence (CI) platform” for revenue teams. In July of this year, the company closed its Series C funding, a $45 million round led by Georgian Partners, which invests in software as a service (SaaS)-based “business software companies that harness applied artificial intelligence, conversational AI, and trust,” according to its website.

“You can think of CI as an additional attendee in your meeting or recipient on your email who records, transcribes and analyzes the discussion,” says Jim Benton, chief executive officer of Chorus.ai. With this information, sales managers can personalize coaching to each rep’s areas for improvement, and sales enablement professionals can improve their offerings.

“Our vision,” says Benton, “is to build a connected CI, bringing the conversation, backed [by] data-driven insights, into the existing workflows and tools of sales and revenue teams. Our latest funding will enable us to continue investing in developing world-class, patented solutions, while expanding our goto-market team and accelerating our enterprise services.”

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THE “FASTEST GROWING CATEGORY IN SALES TECH” According to the press release announcing the funding, CI is the “fastest growing category in Sales Tech,” and Benton believes it’s partly due to COVID-19.

“COVID forced digital transformation on many enterprises,” he says. “The shift to remote work sparked growth as more companies recognized the need for it.” Sales teams are looking for better insights into their pipeline, “and without the ability to walk the halls and speak to reps… managers must turn to technology like conversation intelligence to be able to coach and lead their teams.”

Learning leaders are no strangers to the impact COVID has had on the workplace, and sales enablement is no different. Sales reps who previously traveled to meet with prospects and customers are now meeting with them from their home offices, and sales managers are enabling them virtually as well. While this shift to remote sales enablement has been challenging, these professionals are in a better position to make the shift – thanks to technology.

“Since the pandemic began,” Benton says, “we have used our NLP [natural language processing] technology to analyze businesses’ conversations to understand exactly how COVID was impacting operations.” Chorus.ai has conducted weekly Zoom broadcasts to share this information with executives,

but organizations can similarly use AI to analyze salespeople’s conversations to better understand customers’ needs.

ADAPTING TO CHANGE For instance, Benton shares that executives are scrutinizing business deals more so than prior to the pandemic. Chief financial officers “on the buying side are joining 91% more calls since January, and there is a 77% increase in director-level team members on calls.” Training professionals will need to adapt to help reps appeal to a more senior-level audience.

“With the four walls of the sales floor disappearing,” Benton adds, “enterprise companies will continue to seek out ways to collaborate on deals and drive performance improvements across cities and time zones. … We anticipate buyers will seek out tools and platforms that work within their infrastructure… as we all adjust to the new ways of business.”

Alternatively, based on its market research, Training Industry, Inc. predicts that spending on sales training will shrink 13.75% in 2020. Many organizations are in a catch-22: Technology can improve sales in a time when every dollar matters, but organizations need the budget to invest in that technology. As companies like Chorus.ai continue to innovate, they will be able to better serve salesforces in need.

Taryn Oesch is the managing editor of digital content at Training Industry, Inc. Email Taryn.

COMPANY NEWS

ACQUISITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS MentorcliQ, the leader in employee mentoring software, announces its acquisition of River, furthering MentorcliQ’s position as the top employee mentoring platform for enterprises globally. Both companies help organizations prove that mentoring is one of the most costeffective methods to engage, develop and retain employees.

Lifesize®, a global innovator of immersive enterprise communication solutions, announced the acquisition of Kaptivo, a digital collaboration solutions company. With the addition, Lifesize expands its portfolio of cloudbased unified communications and collaboration solutions for contact centers, video conferencing and meeting rooms with a new suite of advanced collaboration tools.

Veriforce, the supply chain risk and compliance management industry’s fastestgrowing solution provider, announced the acquisition of ComplyWorks, Canada’s leading compliance management solution provider. The combined company creates a global platform of technology and services, empowering millions of workers in a broad spectrum of risk mitigation practices.

TPC Training, the leader in workforce training, performance and compliance solutions, announced the acquisition of Simutech Multimedia, a provider of simulation-based training for maintenance and operations professionals across a wide range of industries. Simutech represents a key element of the company’s strategy for developing a comprehensive workforce management platform.

OpenSesame, the global eLearning innovator, announced its partnership with SumTotal to deliver its curated 20,000+ eLearning courses on SumTotal’s talent development platform. OpenSesame’s integration with SumTotal makes it easier for companies with diverse and global workforces to build a culture of learning within their organizations.

Russell Reynolds Associates, a global leadership advisory and executive search firm, announced the acquisition of the cultural analytics business of Workplace Analytics, LLC, provider of data-driven insights on corporate culture. By acquiring this capability, Russell Reynolds Associates expands its portfolio to assist executives in creating cultures that drive performance and foster collaboration.

INDUSTRY NEWS RESOURCES TO CREATE A MORE RESPECTFUL WORKPLACE

A new anti-discrimination resource center has launched to help businesses provide proper training to their employees.

Business Training Media’s new antidiscrimination resource center helps teach people about harassment, diversity and inclusion, workplace bullying, gender differences, and sexual harassment, among other important issues.

NEW VOICES WITH DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES

Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) has improved Active Placement, their reimagined approach to outplacement, by offering unlimited access to reskilling and upskilling for digital and business

skills. Those who receive LHH’s Active Placement support will now have access to over 13,500 reskilling and upskilling courses from LinkedIn Learning, in addition to digital literacy assessments, learning paths and curriculum from tech education center General Assembly.

GOTOMEETING FOR PORTAL FROM FACEBOOK

The need to connect with colleagues, partners and loved ones has become more important than ever, inspiring the innovation behind a new way to connect with GoToMeeting using Portal from Facebook. Portal is already popular as a way to connect with friends and family, but this announcement brings even more usability to the device through GoToMeeting.

VIRTUAL CULTURE-BUILDING PLATFORM

The Go Game, the leader in team-building and culture-driving games, announced the launch of Go Remote, a virtual platform that enables remote team members to engage in games, live stream events, conferences and more. Go Remote creates dynamic digital environments that enable engagement and go beyond the market standard video conferencing tool.

INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING COMPANY NEWS? PLEASE SEND TO EDITOR@TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM

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LEVEL UP

AT HOME Prioritizing your growth as a great learning leader has never been more important.

Keep learning and developing important skills at this time by investing in virtual professional development designed for you, the learning leader.

View the calendar at the trainingindustry.com/ continuing-professional-development/calendar